Scavenger
by Deus X Machina
Summary: Griffin Lao learns a terrible secret about himself and his family during a dinner at the Wilders' house. But even among his fellow outcasts he struggles to belong.


**Another fic about a seventh Runaway. Rather than tediously rewriting every scene while tacking on my new character, I decided to just write him into just enough key scenes to establish him as a character. This will be a setup for a more complete original storyline that I have coming up. Hope you enjoy the story and please leave a review!  
**

"Baby, can you hear me? Open your eyes! _Please!_"

Six-year-old Griffin Lao stirred. The urgency in his mother's voice pushed the weariness from his body and the boy opened his eyes. He was in a white hospital room, just like the ones he'd seen on TV. His parents, Nancy and David, were looking down at him, smiling and crying at the same time.

"Mommy, Daddy, are you okay?"

Nancy sniffed. "Yes, baby, we're okay."

"Why are you crying?"

"You don't remember, son?" asked David. Griffin shook his head.

"A burglar," said Nancy, her voice shaking at the memory. "A burglar broke into our house and he…he _shot you_!" She broke down into tears again.

"But you're okay now," said David. "The doctors saved you. We got you back!"

David and Nancy embraced their son, something they thought they'd never get to do again.

**XXXXX**

"Put on your tie, dear."

"But Mom, none of the other kids ever dress like this for these parties," the sixteen-year-old Griffin complained, even as his hands expertly knotted his necktie in front of the mirror in his room.

"Your father and I want you to look nice," said Nancy. "If it were up to you, you'd be wearing those cheap two dollar T-shirts you bought at the pharmacy. Just for once take some pride in your appearance."

Griffin looked at his dress shirt and tie in the mirror. He had to admit he did look nice, even with the tie squeezing uncomfortably at his neck.

Every year his parents met with six other couples at the Wilder family's mansion. They were a part of a wealthy philanthropic foundation or something like that. The parents would shut themselves in a room while Griffin would be left with the other couples' children.

Griffin's father David came into the room. "Looking sharp, son. I made some shish kebabs from some roast pork. You'll be there for a while, so you should probably bring some snacks."

"Why do we need that? The Wilders will probably provide snacks and I bet that blonde chick will make some weird vegan dish."

"Don't question me, son," said David. And Griffin didn't.

**XXXXX**

Over an hour later, the bag sat open and almost empty beside a bowl of chips and dip. His father's pork kebabs had proven surprisingly popular. The seven children sat on couches in Alex Wilder's personal arcade.

Nico Minoru yawned.

"What she said," said Gertrude Yorkes. Griffin fought a sympathy yawn of his own.

"I know we'd all rather be somewhere else right now," said Alex Wilder, "but we're stuck here so let's at least try to amuse ourselves."

"So what's the plan, man?" asked Karolina.

"Let's spy on the 'rents."

**XXXXX**

Alex hurriedly stifled Nico's shriek as they watched Geoffrey Wilder plunge the dagger into the young girl's heart. As the seven pairs of parents looked around for the source of the sound, the children ran silently through the secret passage back to the arcade as one of the mothers said something about "psychic residue." They got back to the arcade so quickly that they could not hear the end of their parents' conversation.

"I want that worthless husk disposed of immediately," said Geoffrey Wilder.

"Give it to us," said Nancy. "We'll take it home for Griffin."

**XXXXX**

Chase's white van pulled up in front of Griffin's house. The house was empty, as Griffin's parents had left to attend a retirement dinner for one of his father's coworkers. Griffin looked at the familiar building with a sense of dread. Gert had a psychic link to a dinosaur and Karolina was a glowing alien. _What will I learn about myself in there?_ Griffin wondered to himself. _What have my parents been keeping from me?_

They walked into the darkened house and, learning from their previous two searches, headed straight for Griffin's father's study. They eventually dug up a package wrapped in brown paper. On it were the words "To Griffin Lao. To be opened after the deaths of David and Nancy Lao."

Griffin nervously tore away the brown paper wrapping and found a tape recorder sitting on top of a large book bound in brown leather. Griffin stared blankly at his inheritance.

"Go on, man," Chase said impatiently. "Push play."

"Hello Griffin," said David Lao's voice from the tape. "If you're listening to this, then both your mother and I have passed away. But you'll soon learn that death is just a minor inconvenience."

"Honey," said Nancy's voice. "Your father and I have kept many secrets from you. They might be shocking but everything we did we did out of love for you. Griffin, your father and I are necromancers. And with the book we left you, you can learn our art. You'll be able to communicate with the dead, manipulate them, and even resurrect them if you wish."

"But be careful, son," said David. "Resurrection comes with a catch, and that's the other thing we wanted to talk to you about." Griffin could hear his father take a deep, nervous breath. "Do you remember when you were six years old and you were shot by that burglar? He wasn't a burglar; he was an assassin targeting members of the Pride. And you weren't just injured. You were killed."

The tape recorder fell from Griffin's limp hand, landing on the carpeted floor with a soft _thud_. The tape kept playing.

"Your father and I were devastated," said Nancy. "We didn't hesitate to use our powers to bring you back. But like your father said, resurrection always comes with a catch. You are not an ordinary human. You are, to put it in terms you'll understand, undead. You are a ghoul."

"Griffin, a ghoul is always slowly decomposing. While you won't die from it, there is only one way a ghoul can keep up his human appearance. He must eat human flesh."

"Our work with the Pride allowed us to easily get human bodies for you to eat. We fed them to you over the years. Corpses you find in the morgue are okay, but they're generally laced with preservatives and chemicals. Fresh meat is best for you. Remember, you are a predator, not a scavenger. One human should last you about a month and a half. You always wondered why we insisted that you bring those kebabs to the Wilders' house. The other Pride members insisted you have food with you while with their children so that you wouldn't be tempted to eat them."

Griffin heard someone standing behind him puke, realizing that they had eaten human flesh.

"Griffin, a bright future is waiting for you but you must work with the Pride. They will guide you and give you the life you always deserved…"

Griffin turned away from the recorder, not listening to the rest of the message, and ran to the bathroom, pushing past the other kids. He knelt before the toilet and threw up.

Human flesh. All his life he'd been eating human flesh.

He felt the bones his face shift. The flesh stretched as his jaw unhinged like a snake's. His teeth lengthened and sharpened until his mouth was filled with fangs. He felt his fingers lengthen as the bones in his hand seemed to slide out of his flesh. Looking in the mirror, he saw his true form for the first time. He had a massive mouth, bristling with sharp white fangs. His skin, pulled tight by his unhinged, snake-like jaw, gave his face the appearance of a skull. His fingers had elongated and ended in wickedly curved claws, each one a deadly ivory blade meant for tearing apart his prey. The pupils of his eyes glowed with a red light.

Ghoul.

Griffin fell to his knees, threw back his deformed head, and screamed.

"Griffin!" Alex called. Griffin turned to see the rest of the Pride's children. Their faces showed both concern and fear. Karolina fingered her bracelet, ready to tear it off the moment Griffin became a danger.

Griffin aimed his horrific face at the ground. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said, his distorted voice sounding like a growl. "I'm just going to go far away, where I can't hurt anyone."

"No," said Alex. "You're staying with us. We need all the help we can get to stop our parents."

Chase urgently whispered something into Alex's ear, apparently disagreeing with his decision. Alex ignored him.

"Your parents probably have more of that meat packed away. We'll take it with us."

"Those were human beings. They were murdered!" Griffin growled, horrified at the thought of eating more of the meat.

Alex knelt beside the ghoul and placed a hand on his shoulder, unafraid of being so close to a deadly man-eater. "They were killed by your parents, not you," said Alex. "It's their fault that you need to eat human flesh, not yours. We'll take all the food we can and, if we run out, then we'll go to a morgue or a funeral home and get you corpses. You won't ever have to kill anyone."

Griffin looked up at Alex. The prodigy didn't even flinch as the frightening face turned towards him. Griffin felt his fangs shrink back to teeth and his claws retracted back into his fingers. He looked into the mirror once more and saw a human face.

"Thanks, Alex."

**XXXXX**

"You can't be Neo, Chase," said Karolina, newly christened as Lucy in the Sky.

"Why the hell not?" asked Chase.

"Because you have to pick something original."

"What's going on here?" asked Griffin as he returned from leaving his meat supply in an icebox he'd found in what had once been the sunken mansion's kitchen.

Conversation silenced as his fellow runaways turned their eyes to him. They were all afraid of him. Griffin didn't blame them.

Gert broke the ice. "Code names," she said. "No way I'm hanging onto the name that _they_ gave me. I'm Arsenic and my new friend's name is Old Lace. Karolina's Lucy in the Sky, Nico is Sister Grimm, and as for Chase, I'm thinking 'Talkback.'"

"What about you, Griffin?" the glowing girl asked from her perch on one of the Hostel's few remaining rafters.

His parents' message ran through his mind. _Remember, you are a predator, not a scavenger._

_Fuck them_, thought Griffin. "Call me Scavenger."


End file.
